(ROME) As technology made doing so possible, one of the first “big story” projects that we at KTBB took on was the 2005 conclave in Rome that elected Pope Benedict XVI. The technology was, by today’s standards, still primitive, even though eight years isn’t such a long time ago. The goal then, as it is now, was to do the best job we can of taking you there.

My wife, Lee, was with me on the trip in 2005. She was producer, fixer and grip. I was all alone on this excursion and I missed her terribly.

Here’s what happened on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 in Rome with some inevitable comparison to April 19, 2005.

The Rain

Digital technology is a miracle. At one time, the major networks had to charter airplanes to fly film to New York so that it could be processed and edited before going on the air. All of that is now accomplished on a laptop computer with a decent internet connection.

But the cameras cost money and I like cameras and using good ones in the rain is a bit nerve-wracking. I kept praying for the rain to stop. I kept thinking that I enjoyed the 2005 conclave so much more because my feet weren’t wet and I wasn’t worried about ruining my equipment.

It drizzled, then rained, then drizzled all day Wednesday.

The only way to be there to capture the moment when a pope is announced is to wait — twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon — with eyes fixed on that chimney atop the Sistine Chapel.

Even if it’s raining.

The Smoke

In 2005, every time the ballots were burned, it was hard to tell if the smoke was white or black. The truth be told, it was grey. It started out grey and got greyer if it was black smoke. It started out grey and stayed grey if it was white smoke.

Give the Roman Church credit. They have improved their smoke technology. According to the briefing this morning from the Holy See Press Office, they added a second stove, the newer square one, specifically to make colored smoke. They burn the ballots in the old stove. In the new, electronic stove (square one on the left), for black smoke they add potassium perchlorate, anthracene, and sulphur. For white smoke, they add potassium chlorate, lactose and resin. They use a cartridge of the appropriate chemicals containing five doses released over seven minutes. Voila! Blacker black smoke and whiter white smoke.

In prior conclaves, black pitch was mixed in with the ballots to make the black smoke. Wet straw was mixed in to make the white smoke.

The result was to vary the shade of grey. That led to great confusion and thus great consternation among journalists.

There was no confusion this time.

The Crowd

The crowd in 2005 was nicer. This time I got pushed and shoved. That did not happen in 2005. I think standing for hours in the rain made the people a bit edgier than they otherwise might have been. But I also believe that manners are not getting better anywhere. “Me first” is not isolated to America. I’m finding it just about everywhere I go.

The Moment

It’s a big deal. No two ways about it. The papacy is the longest-standing human institution on Earth, bar none. Anyone who can claim to hold sway over 1.2 billion human beings is a pretty big man. The pope is a world figure and when a man is given the title and responsibility, it’s a moment. Seeing it happen on the magnificent piece of real estate that is St. Peter’s Square is something you never forget.

The Catholic Church

I’m not Catholic. I’m a Methodist.

Still, I find myself rooting for the Catholic Church. Everyone who professes a Christian faith is descended from the church in Rome. For all of the faults of the Roman Church, and they are numerous, at its core the Catholic Church has been an institution dedicated to elevating humans that they might become more worthy of their belief in having been created in God’s own image. The Christian faith in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, has, among other things, chastened its believers. The authority of the church mitigated the baser instincts of man. The teachings of the church have sought to summon our better angels.

As the church has forfeited moral authority due to ineptitude and self-inflicted wounds such as the clergy abuse scandals, nothing really good has rushed in to fill the resulting vacuum. (See the observation on the crowd above.)

I also believe that to the extent that the Roman Church suffers a loss of respect, that loss of respect negatively impacts all Christian congregations. For most of the world, Catholicism is Christianity.

Thus, I wish Pope Francis well. I’d like to see the Catholic Church get some of its mojo back.

Finally, here’s the report I filed to run on KETK Channel 56 in Tyler this evening. It’s a brief look at what it was like in and among the crowd on St. Peter’s Square when a new pope was announced.

The new leader of the Catholic Church was revealed today to be Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina and he has taken the name of Pope Francis.

He stepped onto the Vatican balcony dressed in white for the first time to address the roaring crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

Bergoglio, 76, is a Jesuit from Buenos Aires and is the first pope from South America.

The cardinals who elected the new pope looked out from surrounding balconies above the elated crowd.

French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the senior cardinal in the order of the deacons, stepped onto the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica to announce, “habemus papam,” Latin for “We have a pope.”

Tauran then revealed the pontiff’s birth name and the name he has chosen for himself as pope.

The appearance of the new pontiff triggered the second roar from more than 100,000 people jammed into St. Peter’s Square. The first was when the faithful, standing in a cold rain, spotted white smoke wafting over the Vatican, signaling the election was over. Moments later the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica rang out, soon joined by church bells all over Rome.
Electing a Pope: Cardinal Describes Weight of Conclave Vote Watch Video
Papal Conclave 2013: Cardinals Take Oath of Secrecy Watch Video
Pope Voting Continues: 2 Black Smoke Signals Watch Video

The election was over quickly, coming on the second day of the conclave. The Associated Press reported that the election was sealed on the fifth ballot.

The newly elected 266th pope was moved into the Room of Tears where he was outfitted with his new papal vestments before proceeding to a scarlet-draped balcony to greet the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics watching around the world.

The Vatican band and Swiss Guard marched into St. Peter’s Square ahead of the new leader who they have been sworn to protect for centuries.

The new pope will likely celebrate his installation mass within the next week.

“Usually it’s a five or six day interim between welcoming night and the celebration of his installation. He is already the pope,” Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta told ABC News in Rome. “The installation celebration is a festive, prayerful moment to give an opportunity for a larger community to pray with him in Eucharist and celebrate.”

The 115 cardinal electors began the conclave on Tuesday following the resignation of Benedict XVI, the first pontiff to resign in 600 years. At least a two-thirds majority — 77 votes — was required to elect the next pope.

The new pope is then expected to step onto the balcony to greet the crowd gathered below in St. Peter’s Square.

(ROME) Almost 100 years after a four-thousand year old Egyptian obelisk was placed at this site, the Italian Renaissance genius Gian Lorenzo Bernini was given the task of making the forecourt of St. Peter’s Basilica worthy of the basilica itself.

At the direction of Pope Alexander VII, Bernini took the obelisk and a fountain to the right of the obelisk as you look at the facade of the basilica, and created a massive space so that “the greatest number of people could see the pope give his blessing.”

The Colonnades

The view of St. Peter’s Square as seen from the cupola atop the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica.

From 1656 to 1667, Bernini created the colossal piazza using matching Tuscan colonnades, each four columns deep. The colonnades are symmetrical and encircle the piazza from the north and the south sides. They semi-circular colonnades represent the embrace of the “maternal arms of Mother Church.”

To keep the symmetry created by the colonnades, Bernini created a fountain to match Carlo Maderno’s fountain of 1513, and placed it to the left of the obelisk as you look at the facade of St. Peter’s Basilica.

A grand avenue is formed in the space between the second and third rows of columns in the colonnade.

The Paving

In order that the square not be a sea of cobblestones, the paving is varied by radiating lines of travertine. In 1817 circular stones set to mark the tip of the obelisk’s shadow at noon as the sun entered each of the signs of the zodiac. There are also circular stones to mark the equinoxes and the solstices, effectively turning the square and the obelisk into a giant sundial.

The Obelisk

Standing at 135 feet from base to cross on top at the center of St. Peter’s Square is an Egyptian obelisk.

“I’ll meet you at the obelisk,” is heard dozens, if not hundreds of times per day in Rome. Any Roman who hears those words knows exactly where to meet.

The obelisk was originally erected at Heliopolis by an unknown pharaoh of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2494 BC – 2345 BC). The emperor Augustus had the obelisk brought to the Julian Forum in Alexandria, where it stood until 37 AD.

The emperor Caligula ordered it moved to Rome and had it placed in the center of the Circus of Nero.

Under the direction of Pope Sixtus V, the obelisk was moved to its current site in 1586. The Vatican Obelisk is the only obelisk in Rome (and there are close to 100) that has not toppled since ancient Roman times.

One hundred years later, Bernini used the obelisk as the center of his colossal square.

“I’ll meet you at the obelisk.”

Via della Concilliazione

The approach to St. Peter’s Square from Castel St. Angelo was dramatically revised by Mussolini starting in 1936. The buildings that obscured the view of St. Peter’s were demolished and the avenue that runs from the Tiber River at Ponte St. Angelo to the opening of St. Peter’s Square was created.

Finished in 1950, the Via della Concilliazione (Road of the Conciliation) was intended to honor the Lateran Treaty of 1929, which gave formal recognition to the city state of Vatican City and ended decades of tension between the Holy See and the Italian government.

(ROME) In what might be interpreted by some as allegorical representation of the clouds hanging over the Catholic Church, the conclave to elect Pope Benedict’s successor got underway here in Rome under cloudy, occasionally rainy skies.

If there are clouds hanging over the church and if today’s weather is metaphorical, then the good news is that patches of blue sky showed themselves from time-to-time and the rain was not continuous. It really wasn’t all that bad at all.

Here is the scene on St. Peter’s Square as the Papal Conclave got underway.

(ROME) Less than a minute before I was to do a live shot on the air from St. Peter’s Square in Rome, this Italian nun walked up to me to show me a postcard. She had a sweet smile and I resisted the urge to run her off because of my pending live shot. I smiled back and let her show me what he was holding.

Look very carefully in the lower right hand corner, starting in the lower corner of the marble covering John Paul II’s grave, and you will see that the card has been written upon. The writing, in what appears to be a shaky hand, is an inscription to her in Italian and the signature of Pope Benedict XVI.

Pretty cool, actually. Almost cool enough to be worth missing the live shot on the air for.

It was sprinkling, then raining, then stopping, then sprinkling again. So in my best pigdin Italian, I urged her to protect her treasure from the rain.

Pride is a sin according to Catholic teaching. One suspects that the pride she takes in owning this post card signed by the Holy Father is the only sin this kindly sister has to offer come time for confession.

(ROME) It was at one time unthinkable that an American could be elected pope. But according to La Repubblica, the largest daily newspaper in Italy, there is such discontent on the part of the non-Roman cardinals against the Roman cardinals that a dark horse candidate could emerge.

One such dark horse mentioned by the paper is Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York.

Father Thomas Reese discussed the anti-Roman Curia sentiment in my interview with him Saturday.